I really forget how we settled the question, but the news was certainly not broken by me. The Seraph dropped in to dinner on the last night of my guardianship, and I asked him whether he thought I could improve on the Savoy as my next house of entertainment.

"But you're coming to stay with _me_," he said.

"My dear fellow, you've no experience of me as a guest. I don't know how long I'm staying in London."

"The longer the better, if you don't mind roughing it."

I knew there would be no "roughing it" in his immaculate mode of living, but the question was left undecided for the moment as I really felt it would be better for us both to run independently. Ten weeks of domesticity shared even with Gladys gave me a sensation of clipped wings after my inconsiderate, caravanserai existence, and--without wishing to be patronising--I had to remember that he was a man of very moderate means and would feel the cost of housing me more than I should feel it myself. The following afternoon I called round at Adelphi Terrace to acquaint him with my decision, but something seemed to have upset him; he was gazing abstractedly out of the window and I had not the heart to bother him with my own ephemeral arrangements. At the door of the flat his man apologetically asked my advice on the case; his master was eating, drinking, and smoking practically nothing, wandering about his room instead of going to bed, and gazing out into space instead of his usual daily writing.

I thought over the symptoms on my way to the Club, and decided to employ a portion of the afternoon in playing providence with Sylvia.

It is a part for which I am unfitted by inclination, instinct, experience, and aptitude.

Some meeting of political stalwarts was in progress when I arrived at Cadogan Square, but I was mercifully shewn into Sylvia's own room and allowed to spend an interesting five minutes inspecting her books and pictures. They formed an illuminating commentary on her character. One shelf was devoted to works of religion, the rest to lives and histories of the world's great women. Catherine of Siena marched in front of the army, Florence Nightingale brought up the rear; in the ranks were queens like Elizabeth, Catherine of Russia, and Joan of Arc, the great uncrowned; writers from Madame de Sevigne to George Eliot, actresses from Nell Gwyn to Ellen Terry, artists like Vigee le Brun, reformers like Mary Woolstonecraft. It was a catholic library, and found space for Lady Hamilton among the rest. My inspection was barely begun when the door opened and Sylvia came in alone.

"'Tis sweet of you to come," she said. "Have you had tea? Well, d'you mind having it here alone with me? I'm sure you won't want to meet all father's constituents' wives. I hope I wasn't very long."

"No doubt it seemed longer than it was," I answered. "Still, I've had time to look at some of your books and make a discovery about you. If you weren't your father's daughter, you'd be a raging militant."

From the sudden fire in her eyes I thought I had angered her, but the threatening flame died as quickly as it had arisen.

"There's something in heredity after all, then," she said with a smile. "Do I--look the sort of person that breaks windows and burns down houses?"

So far as looks went the same question might have been asked of Joyce Davenant. That I did not ask it was due to a prudent resolve to keep my friendship with Rodens and Davenants in separate watertight compartments.

"You look the sort of person that has a great deal of ability and ambition, and wants a great deal of power."

"Without forgetting that I'm still a woman."

"Some of the militants are curiously feminine."

"'Curiously,' is just the right adverb."

"Joan of Arc rode astride," I pointed out.

"Florence Nightingale didn't break windows to impress the War Office."

"As an academic question," I said, "how's your woman of personality going to make her influence effective in twentieth-century England?"

"Have you met many women of personality?"

"A fair sprinkling."

"So I have; you could feel it as if they were mesmerising you, you had to do anything they told you. But they'd none of them votes."

The arrival of tea turned our thoughts from politics, and at the end of my second cup I advanced delicately towards the purpose of my call.

"You like plain speaking, don't you, Sylvia?" I began.

"As plain as you like."

"Well, you're not treating the Seraph fairly."

I leant back and watched her raising her little dark eyebrows in amused surprise.

"Has he sent you here?" she asked.

"I came on my own blundering initiative," I said. "I don't know what the trouble's about."

"But whatever it is, I'm to blame?"

"Probably."

Sylvia was delighted. "If a man doesn't think highly of women I do like to hear him say so!"

"As a matter of fact I'm not concerned to apportion blame to either of you. You're both of you abnormal and irrational; as likely as not you're both of you wrong. I wanted to tell you something about the Seraph you may not have heard before."

In a dozen sentences I told her of my first meeting with him in Morocco.

"Thanks to you," I said, "he's pretty well got over it. Remember that I saw him then, and you didn't; so believe me when I tell you he was suffering from what the novelists call a 'broken heart.' He won't get over it a second time."

"You're sure it was broken?" she asked dispassionately. "Um. It sounds to me like a dent; press the other side, the dent comes out."

I produced a cigarette case, and flew a distress signal for permission.

"I should like you to be serious about this," I said.

"I? Where do I come in?"

I searched vainly for matches, and eventually had to use one of my own.

"He's in love with you," I said.

Sylvia dealt with the proposition in a series of short sentences punctuated by grave nods.

"Gratifying. If true. Seems improbable. Irrelevant, anyway. Unless I happen to be in love with him."

"I was not born yesterday," I reminded her. "Or the day before."

"You might have been."

I bowed.

"I mean, you're so deliciously young. Do you usually go about talking to girls as you've been talking to me?"

I buttoned up my coat, preparatory to leaving. "Being a friend of you both," I said, "if a word of advice----"

"But you haven't given it."

Literally, I suppose that was true.